BATON ROUGE — Oonarissa Bernard, a Baton Rouge native, has made her mark in the fashion world, with her journey culminating in the coveted spotlight of New York Fashion Week. Her story began in 2017 when she received her first invitation to the iconic fashion event, a milestone that solidified her place in the industry.
“I got invited to do Fashion Week. It was two shows at that time. The company that I did it with the first time, they just kept inviting me. So every year it went from me doing fashion week once a year to maybe twice or three times a year,” she said.
Bernard, who holds two degrees from Southern University and graduated from California’s Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, has been designing for 15 years. Her journey into fashion began for personal reasons. After her child faced health issues, Bernard became a stay-at-home mom, and it was during this time that she honed her passion for design.
“For me, fashion is a mood. It’s just an expression of how you feel.”
“My youngest baby was premature and couldn’t be in a day daycare, so I had to be a stay at home mom due to his chronic respiratory issues. That’s pretty much how I started my business,” she shared.
What started as a way to express herself creatively has grown into a thriving career, with her work being recognized on one of fashion’s most prestigious stages.
A Brief History of New York Fashion Week
New York Fashion Week, one of the “Big Four” fashion weeks (along with Paris, Milan, and London), traces its origins to 1943 when Eleanor Lambert, a publicist, organized the first “Press Week” to showcase American designers during World War II. Since then, it has evolved into a global phenomenon, featuring hundreds of designers and drawing industry insiders, celebrities, and fashion lovers from around the world.
Bernard’s Rise in Fashion
Oonarissa Bernard’s journey from emerging designer to having her own show at NYFW has been nothing short of inspiring.
“I started it out literally helping other designers. I started out at an apparel manufacturing company where I was producing garments for new and upcoming designers,” she reflected. “I just decided, like, okay, I’m helping all these other people with their brands. It’s time for me to do my own brand.”
Since then, she has also been featured in Dallas and New Orleans fashion weeks.
This year’s collection was deeply rooted in the psychology of color, a concept she’s explored throughout her career.
“I wanted to showcase the primary colors and secondary colors to where each color, I guess, you know each color has a meaning,” she said.
Her 21-piece collection at NYFW featured garments, each designed with a specific color in mind, embodying meanings and emotions that resonated with the audience.
“For instance, I was supposed to have three looks for red, so one was gonna be the ‘Devil Wears Prada,’ ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and the other one was ‘Lady and red’,” she explained.
However, her path to the runway wasn’t without challenges. Just days before her big show, a significant setback occurred when FedEx lost her packages containing the majority of her garments.
“I checked the tracker and it said that it was being returned to the shipper, and I’m like, wait, no, they can’t go back to the shipper. I’m not in San Antonio,” Bernard, who currently lives in San Antonio, said. “They thought the packages were fraud because my billing address was in Louisiana and they were shipping from San Antonio.”
FedEx, who claims they’ve been dealing with fraudulent packages, marked her package as ‘suspicious/fraud’. Bernard said they did pack five dresses with them.
“I did a fitting with the five garments, but I was frustrated at that point, so I’m calling FedEx over and over,” she said.
The company told her it would take 24/48 hours to have a case manager assigned to her to begin the process of locating and returning her package.
“I don’t have 48 hours. We have a show Saturday. These garments are for the show. If we don’t get these garments, we’re not gonna have a show. We’re gonna lose a lot of money.”
The mishap caused immense stress and nearly jeopardized her entire show. Bernard, who describes her personal style as ‘vintage with a modern day twist’, says she and her husband, Jarrick ‘J.T.’ Bernard, hand make every gown and garment which made the loss much more painful. “When you work so hard for something, no sleep, no time, you know, and I still have to complete other client garments as well as prepare for fashion week, too. It’s a lot when you just buy yourself.”
Posting to Facebook every day, Oonarissa Bernard asked her followers to pray hard. “To be honest. I had given up. I was like, if they come, they come. They don’t, they don’t,” she said.
Minutes before show time, FedEx arrives. The prayers have worked. “My husband goes outside and flags the FedEx guy down. He was like, ‘Bro, we need these now.’ The man was like, ‘I gotta scan this in.’ My husband said, ‘I’ll bring the box back out for you to scan but we need this right now,” she recalled.
In a tense race against the clock, Bernard miraculously managed to recover most of her garments—just 10 minutes before showtime. “We had to hurry up and dress the models. We didn’t have time to steam them. Most of the garments didn’t make it on the runway. Some of them didn’t fit the models,” she shared.
The show must go on…
Despite the setback, Oonarissa Bernard’s collection was a success. She reflected on how exposure from events like NYFW is crucial for designers. “Fashion Week brings a level of exposure and advertising you can’t get elsewhere,” she emphasized, noting that the event has opened new doors for her, leading to increased sales and more opportunities in the fashion industry.
As she continues to create and evolve, Oonarissa Bernard remains a shining example of resilience and creativity. She says she’s currently planning for another big show in Europe. Her designs are available through her website.
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